Transcript

Move to Empower | Richard Keegan | TEDxCanberraSalon

[Applause] move to empower well there's three words where two of them might need some further contemplation we're talking today about empowerment and we are working around an explanation whereby something that enables you to do more to achieve more makes you more capable and perhaps even pursue fulfillment in the world and depending which psychologist or spiritual leader you happen to ask fulfillment often comes from helping other people find their fulfillment so imagine what kind of beautiful world we could live in if everyone was for finding their fulfillment that way there's one thing that can make you more capable every time you do it and prevent you from losing some of the capability as you age and him by you longer the crease and keep you in the game a bit longer pursuing fulfillment a bit longer and helping other people a bit longer and that thing is movement so what counts as movement most of our minds leap immediately to wearing lycra and getting sweaty feeling bad and paying for the privilege some of us sleep to grassy ovals and running around chasing a ball with our friends well they both count not many of us leap to walking through our place of work walking through our neighborhood gardening housework but those things count and in fact as you sit there where you are right now seemingly motionless important parts of you are moving your heart's pumping blood around your body your lungs draw in every important breath if you're not moving you're not living so I want to have a little alliterative story which explains how I got to this point 4 months ago playing the sport that I love I hurt myself as you do snap my Achilles I can't advise it and every person I met going through A&E and all the various stages would ask me the same question what are you doing playing sports at your age and this is my life but I didn't have an answer I research Sport and Exercise out maybe I was in pain but I couldn't answer the question and now I can I want to walk you through how I now answer that question it comes in three parts so we have our own mnemonic everything's change there we go mnemonic my videos we have our own mnemonic to remember that message we have to envisage an American college sports team called the carpals with a very unusual logo and we're cheering for them so we're going to shout go car palms but that will help us remember the important message of this talk which goes in three neatly aligned phases making us feel bad about not moving doesn't work there is a difference between good and bad motivation and we need to focus on the good kind then there are other things that we get from moving other than just not getting ill that are actually really valuable so the first two letters are that guilt only hurts motivation and we've heard the message two out of five australians if you ask them in a survey say they get enough exercise when you attach a miter one out of five australians actually get enough exercise own some of them probably attached it to their dog he's seeing this guy and yet when we hear that message we don't leap out of our chair and go to the gym or go for a walk why not we momentarily feel bad and I do too by the way in fact something else happens and my good friends Alison croazia University of South Australia is currently examining exactly this whereby when you see an empty basketball court and a ball bouncing sadly across it or an empty oval with a discarded water bottle on it you don't leave pound of your seat and do exercise and you hear those stats many of us like don't get enough exercise you think ah good I'm normal it sets the norm and hey we're all like this completely counterintuitive but that seems to be what's happening and we've known this for a while and we still keep trying the same message so that's bad motivation and when they're no sales marketing executive would sign off on that campaign there's a thing that nobody else really has and you don't have it either and you should feel bad about that all for the small cost of lots of your time and effort no change the channel I don't want that advert so we're selling exercise and movement wrong which leads to distinction between good and bad motivation we've been doing it wrong all this time and we've known for 40 years the difference between good and bad motivation most of us leap when we think of motivation to carrot and stick there is a punishment which is undesirable and that's the stick and a big stick is more motivating and there is a carrot which is desirable and that's the reward and that's motivating the juicy other carrot there more motivating but there's actually a common denominator in that equation and it's the person being motivated is not the person holding the carrot or the stick we know we're being manipulated and we actually react to that so back in 1971 Edward DC was doing experiments where he would leave people in a room to do a very boring computer game for far too long just in the corner was a magazine and he would say okay there you go oh I'm gonna leave the room for a while get on with it people who were paid remarkably little did the experiment people who were paid a little bit too much see Edward yep I'll do this he was watching so he knew exactly any timed how long and the more money you pay the more likely they are through reading the magazine and it keeps happening and they did it with more modern computers leaving a window open in the corner with a chess game and the second they've left the room if you pay them too much money Oh Jess of solitaire or whatever so we know we're being manipulated with a carrot or a stick and where we act against that because it's not coming from inside of us and that's the best type of motivation they call it intrinsic motivation and it's something we barely ever pay attention and the only easier way I can think of a finding what that is and what you will therefore find fulfilling is to ask the question if you didn't have to pay a mortgage and pay bills and buy food if those things were looked after what would you do with yourself every day many of our answers it leap straight to a dream job which still involves earning money and we have to start again it's a hard question to answer and movement empowers you one step closer to being able to answer that question and it's tied up with motivation because intrinsic motivation is this little quiet voice inside these three things you see before you are what draw out that voice anything where I can make you feel more competent you're improving you can see you're improving and you feel you're improving that draws out your intrinsic motivation makes you feel more competent if I can make you feel more in control and you have choices and you're not the victim of life but you're actually influence in life that's motivating they call it autonomy and of course human beings we need to be around other human beings we don't have sharp claws sharp teeth no big shell we're not particularly dangerous on our own our strength is in numbers and so we're actually hardwired to gravitate to being around other people and we like them to recognize us and Noah's and like as approve of us we really are hard-wired to like that and it's one of the reasons we've done so well in the world we don't just stop when we have food and water and safety we carry on and we explore and we play because we're seeking more competence more autonomy and more relatedness any task i can give you or you can choose the lets you feel those three things is much more motivating and i won't need any carrot or stick to make you keep doing it so guilt only hurts it's mainly an extrinsic motivation external the good motivation comes from within and it's sustainable and it keeps going you feed that flame and that leads us to being able to answer the question when I was in hospital and I love running around but I'm being asked why do you do that you crazy old man I had intrinsic motivation my colleagues didn't the answer is it's not just to avoid dying so of course exercise if we could make it into a pill would be the best preventive medicine in the world it prevents heart disease it prevents diabetes it prevents some forms of cancer it helps you recover quicker from some forms of cancer it's astonishing it reduces all kinds of mental illness better than the best tablets that we have to give people it's an amazing medicine but the benefits of course are far more than just physical even if we go beyond the tissues of our body and a recent conference concluded by the way a medical conference concluded that every organ in the human body responds positively to exercise that's a big thing I think but you're also learning skills it's our main vessel for interacting with the world around us so every time I do something I generate feedback and that makes me learn more about my world that's really valuable information I shouldn't undervalue that mechanism for learning skills that said exercise and movement is about more than just calories burned or skills learned you're still getting more out of it when I'm exercising I feel good I get the so called runner's high endorphins are released the way that chemicals are affecting my metabolism is changed insulin acts differently after I've been exercising I get a sense of self-esteem because I've done things I didn't think I could do and that's nice so I get emotional benefits and physical benefits and mental benefits because I'm actually solving complex problems when I'm moving we shoot up steps we go over uneven terrain we throw a ball between each other and any robot we've so far built can't do those things simultaneously we've built one that can go upstairs we've built one that can go over and even terrain but not together and it can't then pick up a ball and flow it to its friend we're solving really complex problems and the best example is learning to drive where most of us found that extremely challenging and of course now it's very easy we can have our phone on and maybe beating our breakfast all at the same time but we take it for granted that child who's dropping blocks or knocking them over of building them up and then knocking them over repeatedly is learning about the world and solving complex problems in their world learning spatial reasoning and we have research happening right here with Professor Tom Lowry showing the spatial reasoning is the best precursor of subsequent mathematical ability it's really important mechanism for learning and of course there are social benefits we're out there when you move out into the world you meet people we play on the same teams as people when I moved here to Canberra joining a sports team doubled my number of Facebook friends in no time the same people who offered to help me when I was injured by the way it's a really good thing to do there's even an idea that roughhousing and the way kids play rough with each other is learning about what other people will tolerate and how your actions influence other people so it's a really important Avenue again for learning about the social world even ethics cheating morals all of that I learned through movement and movement offers as endless opportunities to learn all of these things I can play sport yes I can exercise yes I can mind fully garden many many options I can do DIY very skillful tasks are involved and so there's a nice challenge in here which is that you can find the answer I don't have to give you the answer that you'll just feel better you can become little scientist yourselves and there's another really nice piece of research happening at Wollongong Christie and Swan finds that going into some tasks without a clear goal I must achieve my half an hour a day I must achieve a certain level of fitness actually if you just go in and say let's see you what I can do let's see how far I can go let's see how this feels is actually a better form of goal more sustainable or intrinsically rewarding sort of goal so you can explore and then if you're inspired to move more you can spread the message because you'll remember this mnemonic so when you leave this room and move out into the world you can move more you can move differently you can move mindfully you can move better and when your friend looks at you and says you're crazy why are you doing this you can answer them with go car poems [Applause]